


First burn

by Asparkofh



Category: Persona 4
Genre: Gen, Song Lyrics, Song fic, Song: First Burn (Hamilton), basically Yu yelling at Adachi because I want to yell at Adachi, yeah this is a song fic to a Hamilton song
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:08:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25921837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asparkofh/pseuds/Asparkofh
Summary: "It’s Yu’s unconscious unquestioned trust in the people he considered friends that had kept him from even seeing the correct solution. He must be the very first time Yu got burned, but he bets it won’t be the last. Yes Yu has much to learn and yet he’s the one in prison. "Needing closure Yu goes to visit Adachi at prison. There are a lot of things that weren't said between them.
Relationships: Adachi Tohru & Narukami Yu, Dojima Ryotaro & Narukami Yu
Kudos: 5





	First burn

**Author's Note:**

> Listening to "First burn" while reading is heavily recommended.  
> Let me know what you thought,  
> Asparkofh

“Good morning Dojima, bored enough to come see me again this soon huh?” Adachi is grinning. It has since long lost its kick, but he hasn’t grown tired of the look on Dojima’s face. There’s something that can’t ever get old between them, the subtle line that has been crossed so many times it’s faded. 

Dojima doesn’t say anything and doesn’t sit down either. That’s unusual. Dojima only visits him whenever he wants something, be it information or closure. Sometimes both. There isn’t much more of either that he can give, but Dojima keeps coming back looking for it. Their chats are pretty much the only thing in his life where something happens. Well usually something happens, it doesn't seem like Dojima is going to do anything. 

Instead of sitting down like Dojima usually does he takes a step aside and waits. They wait together and it seems to be deemed the only thing they ever will do together. Silence seems to be the only thing they agree on. 

His breath catches somewhere else than it should when he realizes why Dojima didn’t sit down. In the door frame stands a familiar person, with his hands in his pockets. Has he grown taller? Adachi could swear that he has, despite it only being a few months. 

“Hey kid” he says. He hadn’t intended for his voice to sound so utterly and ridiculously soft, but it does. There is something about the kid that brings out softness that he doesn't have. 

Yu doesn’t answer. He doesn’t move either for a while, probably taken back by hearing his voice again. Voices can’t quite be expressed through letters, no matter how many words he writes. Yu hasn’t written back and Dojima never mentions it, but he keeps writing it. One would almost think it’s therapeutic for him by now, but that’s not it. He can’t accept that it is. There is too much between them and the atmosphere seems to stop him from moving. 

Yu sits down at the table, still quiet and simply watching. The kid is good at that he’ll admit, at creating a silence that makes the other person want to speak. Everyone else never stops praising the kid for it, but personally he can't accept it as a good thing. 

“I saved every letter you wrote me” Yu looks at him now with emotions Adachi hasn’t felt in ages. There’s something in Yu’s voice that makes him realize that it’s Yu’s turn now. He has been writing letter after letter and now Yu was writing back to him, metaphorically speaking. The confirmation that Yu has been reading his letters does little to reassure him he realizes. He never really imagined Yu reading them. 

“From the moment I saw you I knew you were my friend. You said you were. I thought you were” and there’s Yu’s nativity shining through. Truly believing he had the skill to read people to a point where they were see through. Guess he hadn’t been so see through, huh Yu? The world isn’t so one sided. 

“Do you know what Yosuke said when I told him what you'd done? He said: You have married an Icarus he has flown too close to the sun. It was the first time I heard him use any kind of proverb. It’s ironic I didn’t think he listened to my tutoring" Yu smiles at the mention of the Hanamura kid, but it’s so filled with doubt and other emotions he has left behind. Is he supposed to feel offended? He couldn’t care less about the other kids, they were so far in the background he could barely remember them. To him it was Yu and the others.

“Don't take another step in my direction. I can't be trusted around you. Don't think you can talk your way into my heart” perhaps Yu thinks he was going to say something. Perhaps his chin now put in his hand was enough to startle Yu. He has no idea what caused him to back up ever so slightly. It would not be fair to call Yu scared of any kind. Instead he only sees an anger he hasn’t seen on the kid before, the utter lack of any kind of self preservation. If Yu wanted to hit him, he doesn't have any objections. He doesn't give himself enough credit to believe he could. 

“I'm burning the letters you wrote me” Yu says that while not breaking eye contact. If he didn't already respect the kid he did now. Was he to expect anything else? For Yu to keep them all neatly together with rubber bands in a drawer? No. No he couldn’t expect that from a person he tried to kill. 

“You can stay down here if you want. I don't know who you are. I have so much to learn” for the first time he can see the self doubt crawl onto Yu’s face. He can’t be sure just what exactly Yu still has to learn, but he can come up with plenty. The tv world to start. Yu knew so little about how it had worked, what had created it in the first place. Had the thought even occurred to him that if the people of Inaba didn’t have so many secrets none of it would have worked? 

Maybe Yu really was starting to realize that he couldn’t be expected to correctly judge everyone he came across. Everything can't be solved with friendship. It was Yu’s misjudgment of him that allowed him to get as far, to get away with as much as he had. He has little regard for Dojima, but the little respect that remains isn’t enough to pretend that he would have managed to solve the case. No Yu had. Yu and friends for all that’s worth. It’s Yu’s unconscious unquestioned trust in the people he considered friends that had kept him from even seeing the correct solution. He must be the very first time Yu got burned, but he bets it won’t be the last. Yes Yu has much to learn and yet he’s the one in prison. 

I'm re-reading your letters and watching them burn. I'm watching them burn”. He can imagine it quite clearly, Yu burning the letters. It’s eerily close to his ideal state of the world. If only everything could be set on fire and moved on from. He watches Yu’s eyes and imagines the fire reflected in them. He almost smiles. How similar they are. He has the feeling Yu wouldn’t like the comparison. 

“You sure showed everyone who treated you like nothing. You burnt the whole world in your attempt to prove how easy it was. In clearing your name, you have ruined our lives” Yu tells him this like it’s easy, like the words fit in Yu’s mouth better than they did in his. As if they really did understand each other. Maybe if the world had burned Yu would have seen his side. Whatever Yu believed him to be responsible for taking from his life, he would have realized wasn’t there in the first place. Home, safety and friends were only concepts someone came up with to make life comfortable.it didn’t work in the real work. Still he understands how much he has torn from Yu’s life. For someone like Yu who got his strength from the people around him it must have been a shock to be left utterly alone. 

“Heaven forbid someone whispers: He's not enough for the department. Your enemy whispers so you have to destroy them. You have to take the world itself and create the only existence you could ever be appreciated in” Yu’s getting confident again, like the memories of his betrayal only serves as a stepping stone in Yu’s development. Now Yu can be better, if he managed to ever actually move on. 

“I know about whispers”. Does he? Does Yu have any idea what it’s like being viewed only for what you can give people? He almost laughs as he finds the answer in Yu’s eyes. Yeah. There’s common ground in their childhoods and yet their futures were taking such different turns he wants to laugh. Yu with his perfect morals would walk away and make changes to the world he hates so much. Maybe the biggest impact he would ever make is on the person in front of him. If he changed Yu was that enough? Was making an impact on Yu’s life meaningful enough to keep the world intact? Yu wouldn’t allow that kind of thinking. Surely he isn’t allowed to be that important. 

“I see how you look at my sister. Don't, I'm not naive. I have seen Nanako around you” he brings the topic back to all that he tried to take away from Yu, back to all the reasons he would never be allowed to make long lasting impressions on someone as perfect as Yu. Yu is the kind of kid who deserves their report card on the fridge. 

“Don't, Think I didn’t see how she fell for your charms. All your charms as you became a part of the household. You know I used to be jealous of how well you fit into a household that wasn’t yours, but was supposed to be mine” the very idea that Yu would feel out of place anywhere at all is hilarious to him. The fact that he used to feel exactly the same about Yu keeps him from laughing out loud. 

“I'm erasing myself from the narrative. Let future historians wonder how Yu reacted. When you broke his heart” it’s first now that Yu looks away from him, albeit shortly. The idea that he managed to hurt Yu is just as ridiculous as him making an impact at all. The fact that Yu is admitting it to him of all people is incomprehensible. He can still hear Yu’s heartbeat pounding in his head, remembering the look in Yu's eyes as he truly believed he would die in Adachi’s arms. It’s ridiculous because he has never felt closer to another human being. It’s not that ridiculous as he is sitting here listening to the kid rant. They’re both here. 

“You have thrown it all away. You had a better shot than I had at being a part of the Dojima family and you threw it away. You gave up the right to this family. Stand back, watch it burn. Just watch it burn” and he supposes that’s all there is left for him. The only right he has left is that he gets to watch as everything is torn away from him. Isn’t it ironic that the family he tried to take from Yu ended up being torn away from him instead. If he believed in karma he might have chalked it up to such. 

“And when the time comes, explain to Nanako the pain and embarrassment you put her dad and big brother through” Yu brings up Nanako with a hesitance in his voice this time, like he isn’t even worth saying her name for. The very thought of seeing the girl who's coma he is responsible for,makes his stomach hurt, not out of regret of course but out of discomfort. How could he ever explain the necessity of his actions to a child who only ever offered him kindness? 

“When will you learn that this is your legacy? I am your legacy”. Yes he supposes Yu is all there’s left of it now. Yu is the last thing remaining from the world he tried to burn to the ground, the only person he could remotely expect to impact. 

“If you thought I was yours. Don't.” There’s a finality to Yu’s words that makes something in him panic as Yu stands up. He stumbles to his feet, too busy to even consider Yu’s words this time. There is little else to think of except that Yu was leaving and he had no way to follow. 

“Hey kid, will you be alright?” With leaving Inaba he means, in some strange sudden worry that there is too much Yu still needs to learn. 

“Yes” Yu doesn't turn around, but he can hear the smile in Yu’s voice. It isn't enough to convince him, far from it, but there is nothing he can do to change the outcome now. He has tried to change too much and now it’s up to Yu to decide which changes will be permanent. 

Dojima is waiting at the door and puts an arm around Yu’s shoulders. Yu has been Dojima’s kid for a long time now and Yu was right. He did have an open invitation to a family that would have welcomed him with open arms, a family he didn’t deserve. It doesn’t matter now. Yu was right about a lot of things and his letters deserve to burn.


End file.
